Half a Person
by Lux Aeterna
Summary: WINCEST. Just a simple one-shot set in a motel room on a particularly cold night. Dean watches his brother sleep. Some sexual themes.


Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or anything pertaining to it. This is just for fun.

Half a Person

Against his naked skin, the winter air was like a sheet of metal, shocking him with cold, making the tiny hairs on his arms stand up straight like long-suffering soldiers. Dean had recently shaved his head, and now he was bitterly regretting it. He had never had long hair, but the hair he did have had been thick and almost freakishly soft, like a girl's. He ran a callused hand over the stubble, and shuddered against the cold once more.

Any sweat that had recently glistened on his skin had disappeared, or perhaps it had even turned into some sort of luminescent frost. Dean didn't check. He took one last look at the snowy expanse outside the window, clicked the lock and brought the window back down, keeping out the frigid wind, an effort that the heater in his little room was not willing to be a part of. The radiator seemed to glare at him spitefully from its home on the wall, a malicious piece of hardware, flatly refusing to work for nothing and no one.

Dean couldn't help but admire that kind of obtuse stubbornness, even if it resided in a useless motel appliance. It seemed rather like a metaphor for himself; an item capable of great warmth and usefulness, reduced to sulking and doing the complete opposite of what everyone wanted it to do.

With the window now firmly shut, Dean turned his attention to the sleeping figure that dominated the standard-sized motel bed. If he listened closely, Dean could hear Sam's breathing. Sam had never been a snorer; that had always been Dean's area of expertise. Sam often said that Dean's snoring could wake the dead, which was probably why he was so perfect for his job – the monsters just came to him.

Sam had always slept quietly, ever since Dean could remember. Dean always let Sam go to sleep first at times like this, because he knew that his deep, throaty snoring would only keep him awake otherwise. It seemed fair.

Dean sat himself on a chair next to the bed, and watched Sam's face, unburdened from its worries by sleep. Sam's eyelashes weren't as long or as dense as Dean's, his lips weren't as full and pouty, his skin wasn't as perfectly smooth, olive or porcelain, depending on the climate. But despite his lack of likeness when it came to Dean's seraphic good looks, Sam was still desperately beautiful to his brother.

Dean, a Kansas-born Apollo, sat there and watched his brother sleep. Not just a brother of course, but everything and anything in-between. They were two halves of one whole, drawn and held helplessly together by something magnetic and terrible and dazzling.

Only half an hour previous, Dean had writhed exposed and vulnerable underneath his brother, twisting his head urgently to try to catch Sam's bottom lip between his teeth. He wanted to bite him, wanted to feel his brother's flesh under his teeth. Sam had pressed his lips at the side of Dean's neck and nipped at the smooth tissue there, grinning unseen at how Dean had gasped and arched up, murmuring desperate little words. His fingers had twined with Sam's, grasping so tight that it was painful, in stark contrast with the tremulous zenith of sheer blinding joy that was building and building in his lower abdomen, sending shuddering carnal points of light up and down his body.

When Dean came, moments before his brother, he had cried out like an animal, shivering violently from the endorphin rush. Sam came shortly after, spurred on by the utterly visceral sight of his brother's face, contorted by pleasure, his eyes screwed shut, his teeth gritted together. He had emptied himself into Dean, before collapsing downwards, his considerable bulk squashing Dean, making them both laugh.

Sam had fallen asleep almost instantly. Dean didn't shower straight away. He liked the smell of sex. It smelled like achievement, of something worthwhile executed and won. He could smell Sam's saliva on him.

After several minutes, Sam stirred, before opening his eyes and looking straight at Dean.

'How is it possible that you manage to even be noisy when you're sitting down?' he said, half-joking.

Dean's face was a picture of belligerence. 'I wasn't even doing anything! I didn't even have the TV on. You're making things up. You big exaggerator.'

Sam laughed. 'Big exaggerator? So not only are you the noisiest human being alive, but you're five years old too?'

'You wish. Pervert.' Utterly deadpan.

Sam laughed again, and threw a pillow at Dean, who caught it one handed before giving Sam a glare that would have turned ordinary mortals to stone. Naturally the Winchesters didn't enter into this specific category. 'Come here,' said Sam. His voice had lost any trace of humour, and now he stared at his brother with greediness, green eyes radiant. He stretched out a strong arm, muscles corded, and Dean couldn't help but think that not long ago those arms had been holding him down, while Sam had driven himself inside him. He felt no regret. He never did. How could he?

With the grace of a cat, Dean rose from the chair, and then set himself down on the bed, leaning over Sam before brushing a irritating lock of hair from his forehead. Sam reached up and ran a hand over Dean's newly-shaven head.

'Why did you shave it?' he asked, sounding sleepy.

'I got sick of you getting spunk in my hair.'

'You're disgusting, you know that?'

'Yeah. You've seen me eat, right? This shouldn't come as a shock to you.'

Sam gave a half-smile. 'Why did you really shave it?'

Dean shrugged. 'I don't know. Just in case someone recognised us, maybe. Or maybe because I figured if I have to be the bitch all the time, I can at least _try_ to look like the more manly one.' He let loose a ten thousand watt grin and let himself be beguiled by Sam's bright arching laughter. 'What?' he said. 'Come on, you're the size of a goddamn moose. You gotta let me have something!' He looked coquettish. 'Y'know, seeing as I'm better than you at shooting and pretty much everything that doesn't involve looking like a giraffe-impersonator.'

'You are _not_ a better shot than me,' said Sam, abashed.

'Uh-huh, you keep telling yourself that, Sammy.'

Sam took in the sight of Dean for a moment, ignoring his brother's invisible armour, forged with antagonism, existing purely to protect his mangled little heart. When Dean realised that Sam wasn't about to come out with a witty retort, the recent moment's mirth evanesced from his face. He looked very solemn and very young, younger than Sam, but then Dean had always had that cherubic look about him.

_Maybe that's why he's Michael's sword_, Sam thought vaguely. _He looks like how you imagine angels to be… before you see them anyway._

Sam drank in Dean's face, pored over those huge eyes, the long lashes, the almost feminine poutiness of his lips, the set, determination of his jaw. He couldn't find the words, so he just smiled. Dean knew his brother well enough to understand the simple message of that smile.

'Love you,' he mumbled, all at once self-conscious and elated. He locked eyes with Sam briefly, before pulling away from his brother and returning to his original place in the chair. Sam felt tired and he laid himself back down, pulling the blanket up against the relentless bitterness of the air.

'You should grow your hair back,' Sam said, his voice heavy with the fatigue that comes from their brand of carnality. 'If we stay here much longer, that tiny brain inside your head's gonna freeze, and then who will we have to drive badly and listen to terrible music?'

Dean snorted. Mushy admissions of mutual affection were not their thing, not at moments like this. For some reason, the banter of the insults meant more than ardent displays of sentimentality. They may have loved each other like lions, like an incandescent rage, but they were guys. Guys who ate bad food and shouted at sports on the TV; who quarrelled over the choice of radio; who spent unnecessary amounts of time trying to annoy each other, purely for the fun of it. Not just brothers, something far beyond that, their souls inextricable.

When Dean finally decided to lie down and attempt to sleep in that freezing little room, Sam reached out in his unconscious state, wrapping his long fingers between Dean's. In the pitch black of the night, Dean smiled, and gave Sam's hand a squeeze. He fell asleep, and dreamed of paradise, which curiously resembled a glacial hotel suite, with a spiteful heater, grotesque orange curtains and a frayed green carpet that clashed with everything. As he slept, Dean dreamt of _Paradise Lost_, his inert brain aware in the most basic sense that the old platitude was true: the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven.

In his sleep, Dean smiled.


End file.
